Bound to My Step-brother

Chapter Five

Ryker's POV

The lecture droned on, numbers and case studies filling the board, but none of it reached me. Something else had my attention, a pull low in my chest that had nothing to do with the room I was sitting in.

It started as a flicker. A wrongness, distant but sharp, like a string tied around my ribs had just been yanked hard from somewhere across campus. Then it grew, fast, until my pulse hammered and my hands gripped the edge of the desk without my permission.

~Lila.~

I was on my feet before I'd fully processed the decision, chair scraping loud against the floor.

"Mr. Blackthorn?" The lecturer's voice cut through the room, sharp with irritation. "Is there a problem?"

"I have to go." My own voice sounded foreign to me, strained, already moving toward the door.

"Class isn't dismissed. If you have somewhere to be, you'll explain it to me now."

I couldn't. There was no explaining a bond snapping taut with panic, no explaining the certainty settling into my bones that she was dying somewhere and every second I spent standing here was a second I might not get back.

"I can't," I said, and left before he could stop me.

I ran until running wasn't fast enough, and then I didn't bother staying human anymore.

The shift tore through me in the empty stairwell, bones cracking and reshaping, fur bursting through skin, until I hit the ground on four paws instead of two, faster than any human legs could carry me. I followed the pull like a lifeline, through the courtyard, past startled students who scattered at the sight of me, straight to the smoke already curling out from beneath the lecture hall's windows.

The door was locked, but locks meant nothing to an alpha's strength. I hit it once, twice, and the frame gave way in a shower of splinters.

Smoke rolled out in a black wave. I found her collapsed near the door, barely conscious, soot streaked across her face, the room behind her fully ablaze. I shifted back just long enough to gather her against my chest, then carried her out through the burning wreckage before the ceiling gave way behind us.

Outside, I laid her on the grass, checking her breathing, her pulse, anything to confirm she was still here, still mine to protect.

"Lila." My voice cracked on her name. "Stay with me."

Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused, and the fear in my chest finally faded.

I carried her home myself, refusing every offer of help along the way, and didn't set her down until she was safely in her own bed, color slowly returning to her face.

Victor found us there within the hour, arms crossed, expression carved from stone.

"She belongs in the hostel," he said, like the fire hadn't happened at all. "Not here."

"She almost died." My voice came out dangerous. "Locked in a room, set ablaze by something that knew exactly where to find her. And your first concern is which building she sleeps in?"

"The hostel is safer than you think."

"Is it?" I studied him, the flicker in his eyes he thought he'd hidden well enough.

~You know something. You always know something.~

Roseline arrived moments later, and the moment she saw Lila, whatever composure she'd been holding crumbled entirely. She sank to the bedside, hands trembling over her daughter's face, tears falling freely.

"My baby," she whispered. "My baby, what's happening to you?"

I stood in the doorway and made a decision that had nothing to do with anyone else in that room.

Whatever hunted her, whatever wore rot for skin and threw fire like breath, I would catch it myself. Tonight, if I had to. Whatever it cost.

***

The night was quiet by the time I returned. An emerald stone weighed cold in one pocket; a coil of enchanted netting and chain in were also in my backpack.

Draven, the pack’s mage had helped me on a strict condition.

~It doesn't matter. None of it matters as long as she's breathing.~

I knew what this would look like to Victor, another reckless move from his reckless son. I knew what it might look like to Lila too, if she ever learned the price, another debt tangled into a relationship already drowning in complications.

I didn't care. Not tonight.

"The net's invisible until the incantation's spoken," I told my best friend , Kai. He'd come to help me set the trap. I kept my voice to a whisper as we worked. I did want to wake Lila.

"The emerald glows when it’s close. That's how we'll know it’s near."

Kai eyed the emerald warily. "And if this thing senses the magic before you finish the words?"

"Then we improvise." I set the stone by the window, angled to catch what little moonlight slipped through the curtains. "It won't. Not if we're patient."

We folded ourselves into the closet across the her bed, door cracked just enough to see through.

Lila slept peacefully on the bed.

Time crawled. My pulse hadn't settled since the fire, and every creak of the house sent it spiking again.

Then the emerald flared, bright and sudden, casting green light across the ceiling.

It was here.

I felt Kai go rigid beside me as the temperature dropped, the air turning thick and wrong the way Lila had described. Through the c***k in the door, I watched the shape solidify at the threshold, the ruined grey skin, the hollow eyes, moving toward Lila's room.

I began the incantation under my breath, the old words rough and unfamiliar on my tongue before the net answered the call. Threads of invisible magic wove through the entrance, tightening slowly, and the creature paused, sensing something a half second too late.

Sparks burst along its ruined frame as the net closed, crackling white against decayed flesh, and it let out a sound like tearing metal.

"Now!" I shoved the closet door open and moved.

Kai came with me, chain already unspooling from his grip, the metal humming with its own suppressive magic. The creature thrashed against the net, fire sparking uselessly from its palms, but the enchantment held, dragging its arms down, its power guttering like a flame starved of air.

We wrapped the chain twice around its ruined body, and I felt the exact moment its strength broke, the fight draining out of it as the suppression took hold completely.

We hauled it, still snarling, still smoking faintly at the edges, into the iron cage Kai had waiting in the courtyard, and slammed the door shut.

It slumped against the bars, defeated.

I stood there a long moment, chest heaving, emerald still glowing faint in my palm, and let myself finally breathe.

Who sent an Undead after Lila?